Bernard Kelvin Clive
Author Branding: It is the process of positioning an author as the center of attraction and influence, to be the preferred choice in a given theme, style, category, niche or genre. An author brand focuses more on the author than the books; it ensures that the author’s personality (style of writing, themes, genres) encourages readers to pick his/her books over any other author.
Author Branding is a powerful phenomenon that famous and well established authors used to keep their brands top-of-mind and gain added advantage in many ways.
In an age where brands (personal brands) have become very powerful in every sphere of business, I strongly believe that upcoming authors and writers who desire to make great impact in their writing careers should consider author branding as the preferred way to go.
Here are 5 Main Reasons Why You Must build an Author Brand:
1. Authority: The number one benefit of creating an author brand is that it establishes you as an expert, an authority in your chosen field; you become the go-to person. Try this, go to Amazon.com, or your local library, you will notice that every expert has a tag of a genre, category or theme. John C. Maxell will appear in the leadership expert, Nora Roberts – romance fiction. They are noted as an authority in those areas and they command great respect and influence. This makes their books the preferred one by people who might have not heard about them; this is referred to as Authority Marketing.
2.Competition: There is a huge competition among authors and books at the marketplace, with thousands’ of books released yearly. Many authors and books get wiped away by the competition and never get a fair taste of neither prominence nor money invested. With an author brand, you can easily stand out from the crowd to achieve the attention needed. In this case, your brand does the marketing.
3.Credibility: In an age where people can easily publish contents and become authors, it is quite difficult to filter through to get great books and authors to follow. Your author brand will position you as a credible author which will attract to your business credible publishers to work with. Your readers and followers also get to trust you and you become a trusted icon in your field leading to media trust appearances.
4.Loyalty: Have you noticed how readers rushed in for every release of the ‘Harry Potter’ series? Yea, that is it! J.K. Rowling’s author brand is so powerful that it has built a tribe; raving fans and followers of her books. This can only happen with the influence of an author brand; it builds its own fan base and loyal readers. People who will just be waiting for your next book release, they will go to every extent just to get your books.
5.Auto-Marketing: Book publishing does not come cheap; either electronic or print books, they all demand a huge investment of time and money. So, will it not be rewarding to have your hard work paid off with some profits? Sure! Even though authors publish books for many reasons, getting returns in terms of cash is rewarding. At the peak of your author career and brand, it will require less effort to get your book selling. You would have had a loyal following, your authority and influence held in high-esteem, your books begin to drive sales automatically bringing in more royalties.
I hope this will inspire you to begin your journey of building your author brand which will open many doors beyond your books.
Bernard Kelvin Clive is a Personal Branding Coach/Brand Strategist at BKC Consulting, Lifestyle Entrepreneur, an Amazon bestselling author of thirty published books. Ghana's foremost authority on Personal branding and Digital Publishing who hosts the #1 ranked Business & Career Podcast in Ghana/Botswana. He has helped hundreds of writers, poets, entrepreneurs, pastors locally and internationally to self-publish and built author brands. Tel: +233244961121 | www.BKC.name
